Ruined Kingdom
by C a Girl
Summary: Two years have passed since Kairi, Riku and Sora planned to leave their island. Riku is trapped in the darkness. Sora is trying to find the door to the light. The darkness has invaded their lives, leaving Riku and Sora with one choice, kill or be killed.
1. Regardless of Warnings

Ruined Kingdom

****

Regardless of warnings the future doesn't scare me at all

How simple it had all seemed then, before the darkness came.

Sora.

Sora was with me, playing on the beach, children. Not that I'm any older for the pain wrought upon us. An entire year without a body, an entire year without a friend. Two years had passed since that night when the darkness swallowed up our island.

I closed my eyes against the light. The sound of Wakka and Selphie and Tidus echoed around, playing somewhere off in the distance, happy to be home.

Sora couldn't be home. He was off somewhere, fighting the darkness, trying to restore the world, trying to find…

Riku.

Riku used to love to race. The two of them always competing for my attention. Both of them gone.

I was left alone on the island, a sullen girl of sixteen whose melancholy threatened to bleed out onto the beach. My tears filled the ocean. My heart beat for them in painful, heaving sobs. My sighs filled the air with a kind of music that Emily Bronte could write another masterpiece to.

I lay my elbows back in the warm, gritty sand and closed my eyes against the bright light. Maybe the darkness would be better than this.


	2. Nothing's Like Before

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Nothing's like before

How I missed Kairi.

I wondered if she still looked the same. Red hair, violet eyes, beautiful smile.

And Riku. The longer I looked for him the harder his image had become etched in my brain. His white hair and icy blue eyes growing sharp around the edges.

I would have dreams about them, lying on my back in the middle of nowhere in particular. I would wake, hoping to open my eyes and see them before me and yet, it couldn't be.

Kairi was back on our island, safe, for now. Riku was lost behind the door to the dark, the door to the light. I didn't know if he could have survived an entire year in the darkness.

Sometimes the only thing that kept me going were the warm and soft memories of the beach sand sticking to the bottoms of my wet feet. We would run across the beach, racing for nothing, racing for her. She was so far away.

Nothing seemed right anymore, fighting my way to a door and who knows what else. No one could tell me what would happen when we opened that door. Would all the worlds become one again? Would the light within finally vanquish the darkness? Would I ever be reunited with Riku and Kairi?

Donald's quaking snore interrupted my thoughts.

Of all the strange things I had seen and done since this adventure began, pairing up with the talking duck and dog were possibly the strangest.

Goofy seemed nonplused by Donald's noisy slumber. He was quiet and watchful, looking out for Heartless. We had spent many such nights, sitting quietly together. We had no words to describe the horrors we had seen and the wonders. There were still wonders.

The architecture of Hollow Bastion had held a special power over me. That was Kairi's home world. I recognized it from the memory she showed me of the library. That place was beautiful even in disrepair.

Yet the horrors were beginning to outweigh the wonders once again. The scale was tipped clearly in favor of the darkness.

Ansem had been destroyed and that had been a victory, but it was a very small victory compared to what was lost.

The door closed and Riku looked out at me his eyes shining and his heart on his sleeve for the first time in his short life. I wanted to reach my arm in and pull him out. I wanted to tell him that he could come out, that he didn't have to repent for his errors in judgment. He wouldn't have listened, but I wanted to tell him.

In that one stupid moment before the door closed, sealing my best friend away from me forever I had frozen. I could not tell him that I loved him and that I forgave him.


	3. Whatever Lies Beyond This Morning

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Whatever lies beyond this morning

If I make it beyond today I will be amazed.

I believe in Sora. I believe he will find the door. I believe he will save us, but will it be too late?

The darkness is getting darker if that's even possible. Everyday the Shadows grow taller. Every morning there are more Soldiers to fend off. Every afternoon is filled with the endless slaughter of Darksides. Each night is spent in fretful rest, taking turns slaying the encroaching Heartless.

I am glad to have a companion, although I know I deserve this torture.

Mickey has kept me alive, save my life more times than I can count.

Who knew a mouse could be so strong?

He smiled grimly at me in the dim light of the heart of the universe. He understood better than anyone. He had read Ansem's findings. He had tried to stop the madman before he loosed the terror and fury of the darkness. He had failed to stop him.

I couldn't blame Mickey. I could only feel a burning hatred for Ansem and his Heartless creations. I could only feel glad that Sora had slayed Maleficent. I could only pray that Kairi had made it back safely to our island.


	4. It's Hard to Let it Go

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It's hard to let it go

I felt the cold shock press in upon me.

Every time I killed one of them I was really killing a person who had lost their heart to the darkness.

Was this part of Ansem's great plan? Was it his desire to turn Riku and myself into cold-blooded killers?

All the pain that I had caused, all of the death was because the keyblade had come to me.

Every time I killed one of them I felt it pierce my heart. If it went on much longer I would have no heart left, I would be like them. Only those memories of the beach on the little island, the sun glinting off of Kairi's hair the way the ocean matched the color of Riku's eyes, only they kept me sane.

It had been happy at first, skipping through the fields with Goofy and Donald, chasing after Pluto.

The happiness had been stretched thin. The days turned into weeks, turned into months, turned into an entire year spent chasing after an idea.

The idea that there was a door in existence that lead to the light of the world.

The chasing became being chased. The darkness was spreading again. Killing Ansem had not ended the all-consuming desire of the darkness. Closing the doors had not sealed it off.

We were being followed and hunted. We were spending hours every day trying to get closer to that door, that door that we weren't even certain existed. We spent hours clearing the way, killing our way to the next town over only to find it abandoned, or the jaded people locked inside with weapons and excuses not to the answer the door.

Goofy joked a little less than he used to. His smile seemed false and reminded me of a character I had read about in a book long ago. A priest had told a lone gun that the children wouldn't speak to him because his smile was hollow. I had always liked that story because the lone gun always made it out of everything cheerfully, craving more donuts and he never wanted to kill. He only killed when there was no other choice.

I had to justify killing the Heartless in the same way. There was no other choice. If I didn't kill them they would kill me and there would be no one left to free Riku. There would be no one left to send the darkness back to its place deep within the heart, in a corner so remote no one would ever think on it again.

Maybe it was just my deluded sixteen-year-old fantasy, but I felt like the world needed me. I needed to survive, like another boy I had read about in a book. He had to pilot a giant robot and save the world. He had to kill his friend, a boy he knew, a boy who lied and pretended he was real and human. He had to take his friend's life in order to survive and his friend understood. His friend wanted him to take his life, his friend wanted him to live over his own self.

I had that kind of will power deep within me.

My existence was more important than the Heartless, even though I had probably known some of them in one existence or another. My life was the life that mattered. I had to keep telling myself that. If I doubted for even half of a moment that I was wrong…

I closed my eyes to the reality of the life I had been forced into. All because the keyblade had come to me.


	5. Lately You're All I Need

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Lately you're all I need

I leaned my head on Mickey's shoulder.

These tiny, intimate moments of physical contact helped me to feel human in a world that was nothing like human.

This was my punishment. This was my repentance for selling Sora down the river. This was my own private corner of purgatory, trying to flush out the sins and clear my soul before the final blow struck me down.

There was no fear here, no room for it. I had never been afraid of the darkness. I embraced it. That had been my undoing and as I recognized it there was only weariness.

Sometimes I wished that the darkness would just finish me off as it had done Captain Hook and Maleficent.

The darkness never relinquished anyone it had in its grip. I had slipped through, but I had been swallowed almost whole. There was hardly any redemption to be had for someone who had been so deep in, so far gone.

It would come after me and haunt me. Even sleeping I was not safe. The darkness would weave for me dark dreams, assaulting me with images so terrifying I would never repeat them, not even to unburden my soul.

Sometimes I felt I would not wake from the loop of death and destruction played for me each night. I prayed for release and if death brought that to me I would consider it.

But there was that faint glimmer of hope, that tiny light I had seen in Sora's eyes before the door closed.

He would make it his life's mission to find me. I had to hold out, just long enough to see him one last time.

I could deal with the fact that we'd been cannibalizing dead heartless for food. I could deal with the fact that murder was a daily part of my routine. I could even deal with regret these days.

The memory of his eyes shining blue eyes helped me to sleep at night. Sora was going to make everything ok again. I thought his heart was strong enough. I had to hang on to that belief.


	6. Does That Mean I Have To Walk On Water?

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Does that mean I have to walk on water?

If I thought I could cross the ocean and come to the place where Sora was I would dive in now and swim all the way there.

I had spent many restless nights on the beach thinking of the way he held my hand or the soft look on his face as he fell away from me when the world was separated once again. I wondered if he would ever be able to hold me the way I wanted him to.

It hadn't been real to me at the time.

I was too young to notice.

But now, as I lay alone I knew how I felt. I recognized how love could grip you and rip slowly at your heart. I could see the subtlety of it crouching low and rising slowly to squeeze you with joy and pain alike. I could feel the way my heart speed up as thoughts of him danced across my memory. I would picture his beautiful eyes, guiless and full of passion.

I wanted to hold him one more time and tell him every thought and feeling I had waded through since our separation.

I could separate those feelings from the feelings I held for Riku. I could judge with adult eyes whose love was truer, who would stay the course.

Yet into this cool, objective perspective there was a jumble of childhood memories I couldn't discern.

Something I couldn't remember nagged me at night, even more than missing my only friends. There was a thought that was disconnected, someone I hadn't said goodbye to before I had moved. There was something about the way my father and mother treated me, something that didn't seem right, something that didn't seem quite like parents.

Maybe because I didn't want to delve further, or maybe because my subconscious knew better I stopped trying to remember. I had to content myself with my discoveries about my feelings for the two men in my life, who weren't in my life at all.


	7. Wish I Could Prove I Love You

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Wish I could prove I love you

It wasn't enough to fight my way to Riku.

I couldn't let him die in that dark place without having told him that I forgive him. I couldn't let go without having said at least once that some of this was my fault too. I didn't want him to be alone in those final black moments. I forgot sometimes that he had King Mickey.

But it wasn't that.

It was that he had looked so brave and so proud when the door closed on him, his hand raised in a quiet gesture of goodbye. The click of the lock was so loud that it silenced any last words he might have had.

That gesture had solidified my will to find him. No matter how weary, no matter how many Heartless I had to kill to get to him, I would do it.

The horrors of the road, the Heartless carcasses piled to the moon, the bleeding and bruising and bandaging that Donald, Goofy and I continued to shuffle through. It would all be ok once I found him, I was certain.

It was strange how my existence was solely composed of killing Heartless, losing hope, finding it again, and continuing this endless journey to save my dearest friend. It was up and down, over and over. Something had to give soon, and I thought that it might very well be me that did the giving.


	8. The Daily Things That Keep Us All Busy

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The daily things that keep us all busy

It was enough of a distraction to try and exist in the daily grind without screaming.

Many days I wanted to stop and yell about the injustices of the world.

How in the hell had we all got caught up in this madness? Why had the keyblade come to Sora? Why did I have to be one of the seven princesses that could unlock the ultimate door to the darkness?

As these thoughts chased around in my head one more haunted me quietly, something from the past that had gone unnoticed.

Ansem had looked so like Riku. Why was that so?

A tiny whisper from the very center of my heart answered, y_ou know_.

I shook my head trying to quiet the thought that had resounded so loudly. There was only one reason why Ansem would look so much like Riku. There was only one reason why I would be a princess of heart. There was only one reason why I had tried so hard to forget what I had known for so long, what Riku could barely recall.


	9. A Little Later On

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A little later on

The door was in sight. It didn't seem possible, but there was no denying it.

The light pouring from the very wood of the door was blinding after traveling for nearly a year in the pitch darkness with only the dim muffled sounds of bodies and the occasional dim marking on the ground, a symbol of Ansem's former presence in this world.

We had finally reached it and we were beyond the point of exhaustion. We'd been taking turns, sleeping in shifts and taking a little time to bond together, renewing our connection with another human being. It helped to talk sometimes in the great echoing caverns we traveled through. It brought me back to the human level, after slaughtering so many creatures along the way.

If it weren't for Mickey I would have gone insane or been killed long ago.

Now, we had only to wait and fight off the Heartless that were laying siege frequently. It was if they sensed our imminent escape, our will to open the door. Perhaps they wanted to get out as badly as we did.

It was hard to say, but it was getting harder and harder to fight them. The door was at our back, so that side was covered, for once, but every other side was open and they were tumbling in upon us. It wouldn't be long before our strength gave out and if Sora didn't find us before then we were doomed.


	10. When You Walk Away

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When you walk away

We had to be getting closer. It wouldn't be far now. The Heartless were far more numerous and tougher than they had been anywhere else.

Umpteen different planets and here, on this remote piece of shit planet covered in dirt and the occasional patch of grass, here was the lair of the Heartless; the door to the light had to be close.

The fighting was rougher here.

Donald was sparing with a Defender while Goofy struggled with a bouncing Darkball. I was battling a set of vicious Wyverns, spinning back on me and clawing at my arms as I swung wildly. I had lost my focus and I needed to find it again.

I closed my eyes for one moment. I could see Riku standing knee deep in the ocean and reaching out to me, his palm extended upward, opening himself to the heavens as if he were offering himself to me.

I opened my eyes and found that my skill had returned to me accompanied by my strength.

How many Wyverns had I fought at Hollow Bastion? I knew what kind of attacks they were prone to using, and unlike myself the Heartless rarely changed attack stance. They may be getting stronger, but they were not smarter.

I dashed to the side and threw my keyblade at the approaching creature. It hit him directly in the head and the creature fell at my feet, as they all had. The blade returned to my hand, the grip still warm from my grasp. Another Wyvern flew at me and I sliced as I dashed past it. It was amazing the kinds of battle tactics you could pick up out in the field.

It wasn't long before all of our new combatants were lying in piles along the path that opened up before us. We could all have used a rest that night, but we were almost there. We carried on, wearily, though heartened some by our victory.

We couldn't just walk away when we were this close.

Within minutes we came upon the thing we had been searching for. It had been a year, a fruitless year of decay and remorse, fear and weariness, tears and anger. That year had been spent doubting and hoping in turn and now all doubts were brushed aside.

We had found the door to the light.

It was as high as I could see and wider than my scope of vision could properly take in. There were no handles on this side and I realized with a jolt that we might not be able to open this door. There was only a giant lock in the center of the two doors, connecting them and locking them together in a metallic embrace.


	11. You Don't Hear Me Say Please

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You don't hear me say please

Tidus wasn't listening to me. He had offered an ear when he'd found me crying and now he wasn't paying attention. He wasn't even pretending to listen anymore.

I slid off the bent tree and what used to be Riku's favorite hang island out. He and Sora had sparred here on many an occasion. This was the place where the paopu grew.

I hadn't the opportunity to share this legendary fruit with either of them, and yet all of our destinies were ensnared together.

I took a steadying breath. There wasn't room for these kind of thoughts. They might very well be dead and I might never know. I had to realize that they were gone, regardless of the past, regardless of the truth.

The memories I had suppressed as a child had surfaced finally, breaking through the water and riding up upon my shore. I lay in the sand, remembering the way it felt to be young and carefree and they washed over me, like a dream weaving a web of truth so thick I couldn't breath.

There was absolution there, hidden in those thoughts of my youth, but there were things that neither Riku nor Sora had been privileged to know. If they ever returned to me I would have to explain to them why Ansem looked so like Riku. I would have to explain to them why I had never felt at home in the Mayor's house.

The tears started again and suddenly Tidus had wrapped me in his arms. I wanted to fight him, to push away and be angry with him for not hearing me, but his arms were so warm and so safe.

He whispered into my hair: "I was listening Kairi and I promise you it'll be ok."

I pulled away from him, hardening suddenly. "Don't make promises you can't keep."


	12. That's When You Came To Me

****

That's when you came to me

I could hear him on the other side of the door, running and hitting it with his shoulder. I could almost see the look of determination on his face through the haze of pain I'd been living in.

There was nothing but fighting day and night for nearly a week. If we fell asleep we were dead. There was no end to the Heartless.

We could hear a faint yell: "if that's you take out the keyblade and help me!"

In the moment that Mickey turned to unlock the door the Heartless had become aggressive. An Angel Star aimed for his exposed back, seeing the opening as if it were a target painted on his shirt.

There was nothing for it. I dove before him, taking a blow to the chest. My breath gone, I slumped to the ground and watched in amazement as Mickey summoned all of his remaining magic. He fired round after round of magic into the crowd of Heartless, dropping all of them to the ground.

I felt his sure hands lifting on my shoulders. "There's not much time," he said.

I stood slowly, feeling oddly wet and realizing numbly that I was bleeding. My legs could hardly support me; my head was swimming and the light before me blurred and swirled in a way I couldn't understand.

There was only one very clear thought in my head. _I have to see him one last time._


	13. It's Enough When I Say So

****

It's enough when I say so

"That goddamn door is going to open," I yelled.

Donald and Goofy placed hands on my shoulders to hold me back. I kept throwing myself at the stupid thing, thinking somehow, anyhow, it had to open. I would open it.

I threw their hands away. "Get off of me."

Goofy stepped back immediately, unused to the venom in my voice. Donald stood for a moment debating if the fight was worth it. He turned his head to the side in defeat. It wasn't.

I threw my shoulder into the door one more time. I could hear movement behind it. I could hear the whispers of people, maybe Heartless long locked away from the light of the sun.

I yelled: "if that's you take out the keyblade and help me!"

I stepped back, pointed the keyblade at the giant lock and waited. It felt like hours had passed in the few quiet seconds before anything happened. I didn't think the blade would react. I didn't think the door would open. My hope was nearly gone.

It was then that I heard a rush of air surrounding me. The keyblade began to hum and light shot forth from the end. I was blinded by the tiny stars shooting out and bouncing into the lock. It clicked and the door slipped open revealing the most incredible and indescribable scene.

I can't explain what happened when the door finally opened.

I can remember only the way he stumbled through the opening and landed on his knees at my feet. I threw myself to my knees and placed my hands around his face.

He spoke softly in a broken rhythm.

"Tell Kairi I'm sorry."

"Don't talk like that Riku," I yelled, "you're talking crazy."

He simply leaned his head on my shoulder. "Much softer than Mickey," he said so softly that I thought I'd mistaken what he'd said. He twined his fingers around my arm and squeezed very softly. "Sora…" He trailed off quietly and I realized that he was crying. "You gave me the hope to carry on. I knew you would find me. I knew you would find a way. I knew you loved me," he sobbed, deeply and those chest wracking sobs started to shake me.

I couldn't answer him, or tell him the emotions that were threatening to burst out of my chest. I simply held him, wrapped my arms around him properly and held him with every last fiber of my being.

It was a long time before I realized that he had stopped breathing.


	14. Don't Get Me Wrong I Love You

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Don't get me wrong I love you

The first time I held her it felt like a lie.

Riku was gone and I had turned to Kairi to save my soul.

She was soft and pliant and patient, all of those things that Riku was not. While I loved her I realized that a larger portion of my heart had belonged to the boy with the white hair and that my affection towards Kairi was almost false.

It had taken me forever to find my way back to the islands but she needed to know. She needed to understand what had happened to Riku and what had happened when they opened the door.

There was no magical joining of the worlds. Order was not restored. The light didn't fix anything that the darkness had broken.

Riku was gone, buried in a secluded plot near the door to which hope was a lie.

The bitterness had grown and I could taste it in my mouth. The sour, tangy flavor of anger and mislead dreams mixed within me to produce a bile so awful it could melt metal.

The hope had been stolen from me when the air had been stolen from his lungs.

The light in my heart was shaded by a curtain of unrealized fantasies and desires.

My heart really wasn't there anymore. It was numb. I was trying so hard not to feel the pain that I hadn't realized there was hardly any left. I had hacked away at my heart for months thinking it was fruitless to believe the pain would one day subside. Yet here I was and I couldn't feel a thing.

I could only remember in some sort of casual way the soft weight of his head on my shoulder and the quiet words he spoke, there on that eve of destruction.

I locked the door behind him. I buried the key next to him. I purged myself of every rotten emotion, crying until his unmarked plot was muddy.

There was nothing for it. I had to jump-start my heart and I knew that some how, some way Kairi could help me. But first, I had to tell her; I had to explain what had occurred at the door.

I spoke slowly, coolly absorbing her every reaction as if I were a spectator and not a player in this bizarre scene. She sat with me, tearing up at times, growing angry at others. Finally she broke down and I could go no further.

"He said that he was sorry."


	15. I Don't Think Life Is Quite That Simple

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I don't think life is quite that simple

Her eyes filled again with tears, glazed over and stinging. She looked down at her hands shaking her head as if this wasn't happening. I tried to reach over and hold her hand, but she lifted them up to cover her face, to wipe clean the tears that wouldn't stop.

"He was my brother," she said softly, her pale cheeks dripping, her futile wiping unceasing.

"Riku?"

"Yeah."

"How do you know?" I implored, it seemed so far from the truth. She seemed to be in a right state and I thought more than once that she might be losing it.

Yet as she would explain all of the pieces fit together revealing the only possible conclusion.

She was a princess of heart. She was one of seven. She was the princess of Hollow Bastion; her father had been the king there. The king had been Ansem.

Ansem had to be her father.

She could recall just barely that her grandmother would tell her that her son had such a fascination with the darkness in people's hearts.

She could remember in hazy detail a little boy with white hair running through the library with her, sliding down the banisters and laughing like there was no other joy in the world. He looked the spitting image of his father, a tall man with the same shocking mane of long, white hair. His coloring was like his son's, tan even when neither of them had spent much time outside on the castle grounds. Their only difference lay in their eyes. The father had fiery eyes, as if a demon lay in wait just behind them. The son had icy eyes, as if his heart had been locked away.

There was another memory, a woman, tall like her husband with thick red hair and sparkling violet eyes. It seemed only just that Kairi remembered this woman, because this woman was her mother. The people she'd been living with were not her parents, but her aunt and uncle, the sister of her mother and as dear to her as any two people could be. Yet they had lied to her, existed as her parents for so many years that she had never questioned.

She had been sent away, that she could remember. The little boy with the white hair had left first. He'd been sent away with no reason, no sentiment, no goodbye. It was years later that the girl Kairi had been was sent off to a new place with pseudo parents. She was almost too young to remember that they weren't her real parents. She was almost too young to protest.

Those memories had come crashing in upon her as the waves broke on the shore. She lay awake at night trying to piece them together and here it was, a haphazard quilt of logic and memory sewn with an apprentice's skill.

That was why it had been so easy for Ansem to possess Riku's body. They were close enough in blood and mind, body and soul. He could take his son, use him as a tool to fulfill his own needs and desires. Ansem was like that, though she didn't know this because of her own memory.

She carried with her something of her mother. It was the pearl that rested above her heart on a chain of silver. She couldn't remember why, but she felt compelled to put it on every morning, to wear it everyday that she remained on Destiny Islands, away from her true home.

She didn't know that this was her parting gift from the woman she could recall only as if in a dream.

She placed her hand in mine and tried to explain everything. After bashing it out several times it started to become clear, to make sense, to sharpen in focus. The edges were still blurry, but they would always be. Time would sort out all the little details that didn't get filled in. Love would erase all the little things that didn't matter.

It made sense now the way Riku had always treated me. He must have known deep down that Kairi was something more to him than just a friend. All along he was grooming his best friend to be the perfect boyfriend for his baby sister.

I smiled to hold back the grimace, the pain welling up in my ears as white noise. Kairi was still explaining in her patient way, but I couldn't hear her anymore. I could only see her brother gazing over her shoulder, his hand extended, reaching for me and never getting there.


	16. So Simple and Clean

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So simple and clean

It was not as simple as it seemed, nor even as complicated as it sounded.

It fell somewhere in between and it was up to Kairi and Sora to build it into something that made sense.

They had only the future to look forward to and only time could cure their ills.

It was with great regret that Sora left Destiny Islands. There was another place for him to be and it was not by Kairi's side. He found a nice little cabin, close to the door where he would stand guard. His friend was there, waiting for him in his quiet, sulking way.

Sora had to tend to his needs, sweeping his place of rest, picking out the weeds, planting new flowers every spring. He wanted to make up for all of the mistakes they had made together and to live out the memories they had shared. He sat down every morning and reminisced with the headstone of his beloved friend. He stood guard in the afternoon, ensuring that no one would approach the door, no one would wonder at it and try to open it. At night he would come out to see the stars, kiss his friend goodnight and lay his own head to rest on a cool pillow, alone and quite happy.

Kairi might have known. She couldn't give him what he wanted most and that was to have his friend back. She could only hold him in his lonely hours and kiss him and tell him that he mattered.

But he didn't want that, so she let him go. She stayed on her beach, playing with the children that arrived from time to time. She spent time with them, pretending that they were her own. She hoped that one day Sora might return to her and really live his life, but she realized in her heart that it was not to be.

They were connected by a very thin thread, a silken strand of fate. It held them together, even far away and she knew that she wasn't really alone. No one is ever really alone. She sighed, looking up to the golden sky as the sun blinked out over the horizon.

Tomorrow would be another day. The darkness could not touch her. She was free.

She felt washed by this experience, cleansed in a way that she didn't quite understand.

The past was buried with her brother. The light was still living along side the darkness of her heart, something that no one could rid the world of completely. She smiled very lightly reaching her hand out to touch the sky while her other hand lay buried in the soft beach sand.

She could reach the heavens and hold the earth all at the same time and for once that was more than good enough.

The princess did not have a castle, but she had already built one in her heart.

****

The End


End file.
